Higher fees being charged by independent schools reflect teacher salary increases and are not profit-driven, the association representing the sector has said.
Under a deal announced last week, the annual rise in private school fees will be capped at 12% for the next five years following a government commitment to inject €27 million into independent schools over the same period.
Without it, fees were expected to soar by up to 24% and parents would have been forced to pay an additional one-off payment of €1,000, Education Minister Clifton Grima told a press conference last week.
Asked about the rise, a spokesperson for the Independent Schools Association (ISA) said that to their knowledge, “most schools” would increase their fees by 12%.
“The increases are not to increase profits, but to meet costs... our hope is to go back to normal rises from next year,” she said.
Parents of independent school students said they usually saw yearly fee increases of around 5%. Letters sent out by schools shown to Times of Malta show parents could be expected to pay up to €8,300 in private school fees this year.
“The truth is that school fees go up each year to reflect salary increases. School fees would have probably gone up significantly this year anyway,” the spokesperson said. She pointed to cost-of-living allowance (COLA) increases as one factor pushing up fees.
She said the larger-than-usual fee increases this year reflect the higher salaries agreed in the recent deal agreed between the government and the teachers’ union.
While independent school teachers are not government workers and therefore paid differently to those in state schools, private school salaries are “broadly in line” with state salaries, the association spokesperson said.
She added that if independent schools did not pay as much as the state, they would not be able to retain staff or attract new teachers.
While the 12% fee increase would cover the new higher salaries – which she stressed had been backdated in the MUT agreement – the spokesperson said the remaining 12% increase and one-off payment originally envisaged would be covered by the government deal to inject state funds into the private sector.
Defending the figures, she said they were “all tested on each school, looking at teacher and student populations as well as teacher pay grades and experience levels.”
She emphasised that both the 24% and later the 12% increases had been “cross-checked with auditors and the government and wasn’t just decided by independent schools”. The process was a “very studied approach”.
The spokesperson added that independent schools had worked hard to keep the figures as low as possible.
Feeling squeezed?
Asked about parents who might already feel squeezed by yearly school fee increases, the spokesperson said “that is why the government and ISA agreed the cap”.
Stressing that around 90% of a school’s costs were for HR, she said that any impact on those costs has an impact on school fees.
Asked if schools were considering alternative payment options for parents in light of the higher-than-usual increases, she said private schools had “always been open to financing options”.
Emphasising the association’s support for the MUT sectoral agreement, the spokesperson said that while the sector had “needed” it, this had inevitably impacted fees.
“We needed to recognise the work of teachers, or we would have had a national problem – but there is a cost impact to that,” she said.
Parents of independent school students last saw price hikes above normal levels in 2018, when school fees jumped by up to 20%.
Like this year, the increases six years ago were to match salaries being offered in state schools following the conclusion of a sectoral agreement between the teachers’ union and the government.
The ISA represents Chiswick House School, St Martin’s College, San Anton School, San Andrea School, St Catherine’s High School, St Michael School, St Michael Foundation and Newark School.